THE COAL FIELDS OF ALABAMA. 


J. W. BURKE. 


THE WARRIOR BASIN. 

In a few years we will be obliged to dpal with the problem of 
supplying the Gulf of Mexico, the West Indies, the Isthmus of 
Panama, the countries of South and Central America on the Atlan¬ 
tic and Pacific—and the entire Pacific coast—with cheap coal. 
This trade, already gigantic in its proportions, is now almost en¬ 
tirely absorbed by Great Britain, mainly for the reason that it is 
delivered at a less price than coal at present mined in the United 
States, and the control of this enormous trade has remained for 
yhars in British hands, unchallenged. The products of the Ameri¬ 
can mines are almost entirely devoted to home consumption. The 
great increase of domestic manufactures, of railroads, steam vessels, 
and the manufacture of iron, has steadily kept pace with the pro¬ 
duction of bituminous coal in the United States, and the home 
demand constantly increasing, will for year's to come be fully equal 
to the capacity of the mines. 

This is, perhaps, one reason why the export trade in coal is fio 
much restricted. 

There is, however, an additional one, and that is, that the ex- 
~pense of mining coal and delivering it at American tide-water will 
not justify its extensive exportation in competition with England. 

The long line of water transportation to New Orleans—con¬ 
stantly beset with physical difficulties, and the expensive transpor¬ 
tation by rail and otherwise to the Atlantic sea-board are not favor¬ 
able to a large or profitable exportation. 

To find a portion of our country where these geographical 
obstacles, distance and locality, cease to be impediments to the 
development of this trade with the countries named, is what is now 
much to be d^ired, in view of the construction of the Panama 


TN 805 
■ fl6 B8 
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nd Eads’ship-railway, and the immense influence that those 
channels of commerce must ecessarily exert on our country. 

The object of the present treatise is to present facts showing 
mat the object desired is easily attainable. 

It is only of late years that the existence of coal in Alabama 
has been brought into general public notice. It is a marvel to 
practical men how, for years, Pennsylvania sent her coal 2000 
miles to the Gulf, and England carried it over 5000 miles of ocean 
to supply our Gulf and Atlantic sea-coast cities and towns, whilst 
within 250 miles of the tide, right within the heart of our own 
domains, there existed nearly 6000 square miles of coal equal in all 
points of excellence to that of the Northern bituminous fields, and 
superior in many respects to the British article. 

Even to-day there are some who discredit the statements of 
those who have published their observations of this magnificent 
deposit. Slowly but surely the vast mineral, treasures of Alabama 
are becoming utilized ; the cheap production of iron rendered possi¬ 
ble by the cheap production of coal has led the way to the founda¬ 
tion of an industry whose progress in eight years has been simply 
marvelous. 

The existence of the coal fields of Alabama was noticed as far 
back as 1834. A writer in Silliman’s Journal, vol. xxxi, in describ¬ 
ing them, says: “ This State is very rich in bituminous coal of a 
most excellent quality. It is in every respect equal if not superior 
to the very best English coal. It is very heavy, burns with a good 
flame, and gives out much heat. It also yields the carbureted 
hydrogen gas in immense quantity. The veins or formation of this 
coVl are quite extensive. It is first seen in the bed of the Black 
Warrior river, near Tuscaloosa, and next appears on the surface 6f 
the ground to the northeast and east of the town.” 

In 1846 Sir Charles Lyell visited Alabama and made analysis 
of the coal of the Warrior field, of which he said: “The most 
western of the two coal fields has been found by Prof. Brumby to 
be no less than ninety miles long from northeast to southwest, with 
a breadth of from ten to thirty miles, extending through the coun¬ 
ties of Tuscaloosa, Walker, Jefferson and Blount, on both sides of 
the Warrior*river and its branches. The most eastern coal field, 
or that of the Cahawba, is nearly of equal length and width.” 

Notwithstanding the contiguity of this enormpus body of coal 


to the Gulf of Mexico little effort has ever been made to clear away 
the obstacles that prevented its cheap transportation to the tide. 
As far back as 1850 coal was mined in the bed of the Warrior and 
along the banks of the numerous streams tributary to it above Tus¬ 
caloosa, and floated to Mobile during the winter freshets of the 
river, where it was used for fuel and gas purposes with the most 
satisfactory results. Between the coal fields and continuously navi¬ 
gable water exist obstructions caused by the coal measures them¬ 
selves, rocky shoals with intervals and long reaches of smooth deep 
water. 

Before the introduction of railroads the people of that part of 
the country constructed rude flatboats, quarried the coal out of the 
dried beds of the creeks in summer, after the “ laying by ” of their 
crops, and loading those frail crafts awaited the rise in the Warrior 
to get over the shoals. With the exception of this very primitive 
mode of operation there was but little coal mined in the Warrior 
field, and that was confined to the farmers living on the river, who 
carried it to Mobile not as a regular business but as a mere inci¬ 
dent to/ a venture rendered necessary in getting their cotton crops 
to market. The construction of the South and North Railroad and 
of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad on the eastern and south¬ 
ern bounderies of the Warrior field, the discovery that the coal 
mined on those lines could be used in the manufacture of pig iron 
and was pronounced excellent for steam purposes, attracted the 
attention of capitalists, and in a few years the iron and coal indus¬ 
tries on these great lines of railroads increased with astonishing 
rapidity. Mining towns grew up at once, bringing a large increase 
of capital and population to the State, and the city of Birmingham 
sprang into existence and became in a decade an extensive manu¬ 
facturing centre. In the space of ten years the whole face of the 
country was changed by the construction of one line of railroad. 
In no part of the country have the coal and iron industries attained 
such proportions in so short a space of time. 

THE WARRIOR COAL FIELD. 

This magnificent deposit of coal takes its name from the War¬ 
rior river, which finding its source in the mountainous country bor¬ 
dering the coal measures of the State of Alabama on the north, runs 


6 


directly through them, flowing into the Tombigbee river at De- 
mopolis, Ala., and thence onward into the Alabama river and the 
Gulf of Mexico at Mobile. For convenience it has been divided 
into “The Plateau or Table-Land region'” and “ The Warrior 
Basin,” the plateaus sinking into the basin proper. 

“ There are three troughs or synclinal basins in the Warrior 
coal field, with local wrinkles, each one resembling in form a long, 
shallow tray, with seams dipping at the edges and ends, but nearly 
horizontal in the centre. The first extends from near Birmingham, 
going westwardly, to a point near the Warrior river, in the great 
Sequatchie fold, which extends from Tennessee, southwesterly, in 
a straight line with Sequatchie Valley, in that State, and its con¬ 
tinuation, Brown’s Valley, in Alabama, crossing the Black War¬ 
rior river, at a point near the mouth of Five-Mile creek. The 
second extends from this Sequatchie fold, or its continuation, to 
Byler’s ridge, which forms the shed between the waters of the 
Black Warrior and West Sipsey, a tributary of the Tombigbee. 
The third extends from Byler’s ridge to the western edge of the 
coal field, and is the smallest and least important of the three coal 
basins mentioned.”—Killebrew. 

In the first two basins, which may be designated respectively 
the Birmingham Basin and the Jasper Basin, there are not less, 
according to Prof. Smith, State Geologist of Alabama, than twenty- 
six hundred feet of coal measures, including between thirty and 
thirty-five seams of coal, five of which have been extensively mined. 

Mr. W. A. Gould, an intelligent miner, who has been pros¬ 
pecting in this coal field for twenty-seven years, and whose knowl¬ 
edge of it is extensive and accurate, he having opened many of the 
coal mines which are now in successful operation, asserts that he 
has exposed forty-two different seams of coal in the Warrior coal 
field, and he knows the coal measures there to be over four thousand 
feet in thickness. This is a remarkable statement, and shows 
an extraordinary development of the coal measures of the Alabama 
coal fields as compared with others of the United States. In Penn¬ 
sylvania, according to Prof. Rogers, the thickness of the coal 
measures is two thousand and eighty-nine feet. In Ohio, accord¬ 
ing to Prof. Newberry, there are fourteen hundred and fifty-five 
feet. In West Virginia, a thousand and twenty-nine feet; while 
in Indiana, Prof. Cox makes them six hundred and fifty-nine, while 
Prof. Worthen, State Geologist of Illinois, makes their thickness 
- or that State about six hundred feet. The Missouri basin is but 


little thicker. So, taking the lowest estimate, that of Prof. Smith, 
it appears that the coal measures of the Warrior basin have a greater 
thickness than those of any other field in the United States by over 
five hundred feet, and according to Mr. Gould, of fifteen hundred 
feet. A section furnished by the latter gentleman, the result of 
three years’ work in the .southern end of the .Warrior coal field, 
shows the following seams of coal, beginning at the upper one: 

1. Snyder Seam .i foot 6 inches. 

2. Hayes Seam...3 “ ° “ 

3. Johnson Seam. ..... .2 “ o' 11 

4. Cowlen Seam.... . 2 “ 6 Si 

5. Clements Seam... 2 “ 6 “ 

6. Coal Seam. 1 “ 5 “ 

7. Coal. 1 u 2 

8. Selum Seam..— 2 “ o “ 

9. Gould Seam ... . 3 “ o u 

10. Coal. 1 “ 8 “ 

11. Blacker Seam. . 3 “ o “ 

12. Coal . .. ....... 2 “ 3 “ 

13. Swamp Seam.4 “ 4 “ 

14. Hard Vein (with Shale partings)..5 “ 8 “ 

15. Cleveland Seam. ... 3 “ 4 “ 

16. Coal. ..4 “ o “ 

17. Coal (block)..’ 3 “ o “ 

18. Triple Seam..... '.2 “ 1 “ 

19. Coal. '• .. 1 “ 5 “ 

20. ' Coal.T “10 “ 

21. Coal. 1 “ 8 “ 

22. Coal.2 “ o “ 

23. Coal.2 ■ “ 2 « 

24. Coal.. 2*“ 2 “ 

25. Halman Seam (Shale parting) ...6 w 8 

26. Coal.. 6 “ 8 “ 

27. Coai (White Ash)..3 “ r ‘‘ 

28. Coal.'.4 “ 6 “ 

29. Coal. 5 “ 6 “ 

30. Coal. .. 8 “ 6 “ 

31. Coal.4 “ o “ 

32. Coal. 3 “ 3 . “ 


4 

3 


































8 


The Louisville and Nashville Railroad runs through the eastern 
edge of the field, the Alabama Great Southern skirting it on the south. 

The Georgia Pacific crosses it, entering it seven miles’ west of 
Birmingham, in Jefferson county, and thence through that county 
westwardly through Walker and Fayette counties to Columbus, 
Miss., where it connects with the Mobile and Ohio. 

This road is built and operated between Atlanta, Ga., and the 
Milner coal mines, ten miles west of Birmingham, and from Colum¬ 
bus, Miss., to the western edge of Walker county, leaving an in¬ 
termediate gap through the very heart of the coal measures of about 
forty miles, which is now being constructed. The Birmingham 
and Tennessee Railroad, now building, enters it on the. northern 
boundary and penetrates it centrally, connecting with the Georgia 
Pacific at a point in Walker county. 

At the present date all coal mined in Alabama is transported 
by rail, the internal local demand taking the entire product, and 
the mines being exclusively located in the plateau region spoken of. 

The principal markets for coal are New Orleans, Mobile, Gal¬ 
veston, Montgomery, Selma, and fhe towns and cities in Alabama, 
Mississippi and Georgia. A very considerable p.art is converted 
into coke and sold to the iron furnaces in Georgia and Alabama, 
and a large portion is disposed of as steam coal in New Orleans, 
Pensacola and Mobile, in those cities entirely superseding foreign 
coal, and successfully competing with Pennsylvania and Ohio coals. 
The coal industry in Alabama is in its infancy, but its growth 
has been almost phenomenal. In 1869 there were produced but 
11,000 tons, whilst in 1883 the estimated output of the mines was 
1,000,000 tons, and still the product does not keep pace with the 
demand. The cost of mining a ton of coal in the Warrior field 
and delivering it on the cars does not exceed $1.00. The rate of 
transportation to Mobile is $2.00, to New Orleans $2.20. It is 
sold readily in those cities at $3.75 per ton for steam purposes, 
leaving the moderate margin of 75c. per ton for handling and profit 
to the mine owner and the dealer. In this estimate it will.be seen 
that fifty per cent, of the cost of delivery at tide water is that of 
transportation, and any means tending to reduce this item is of the 
greatest importance, not alone to this great and increasing industry 
but to the commerce of the whole world in the Gulf, West Indies 
and South Atlantic. 


9 


The productive area of the coal fields of Alabama is estimated 
at 5,350 square miles. Of this the Coosa field has 150, the Cahawba 
200, and the Warrior 5,000 square miles. These divisions take 
their names from the respective rivers—Warrior, Cahaba and 
Coosa, which flow through them. From these streams branch out 
in all directions innumerable creeks, subdividing the coal measures, 
and affording, especially in the case of the Warrior, many miles of 
deep water nine months in the year, thus enabling the coal to be 
mined far up in the interior and floated to the main stream. Hu¬ 
man skill could not have devised a more perfect system of internal 
canals or auxiliary water courses than nature has provided on the 
Warrior. Branching off in all directions those creeks cut their 
way through the measures, and in many cases flow over solid beds 
of coal. During the summer months this river is not navigable 
above Tuscaloosa. In fact, it is almost at, the very verge of the 
coal measures in Tuscaloosa that the obstructions to navigation 
commence, caused by the structure of the coal measures themselves. 
“ At this point the river changes its entire character, forming dur¬ 
ing low water a series of lakes and falls over rocky ledges which 
completely impede navigation.” In very high stages of the War¬ 
rior, and before the construction of railroads, flatboats were suc¬ 
cessfully carried to Mobile, but the dangerous passage over the 
shoals and the losses incurred, caused the ultimate abandonment 
of that means of transportation, and at the present time the agri¬ 
cultural produce of the Warrior country is carried from thirty to 
forty-five miles to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad at Bir¬ 
mingham, and the business of conveying Coal by river entirely 
suspended. 

The great apparent fact connected with these Alabama coal 
fields is that, taking into consideration their geographical position, 
their physical characteristics, the superior quality of their pro¬ 
duct,“ and the cheapness with which they may be mined and trans¬ 
ported, they constitute the only source of supply in the entire world 
which can successfully compete with British coal in the Gulf, West 
Indies, South America, and on the completion of the Panama canal, 
on the entire Pacific coast. When the facts on which this assertion 
is founded are stated, the reality is startling. The coal area of 
Great Britain is estimated at 11,900 square miles, and that of the 
United States 192,000 square miles. Thus it is seen that the area 


10 


of the Warrior coal field alone is nearly equal to half that of Great 
Britain. * 

In 1880 Great Britain mined 133,808,000 tons of mineral coal, 
and the United States 59,808,398 tons. 

In 1881 Great Britain exported 18,760,000 tons of coal, to the 
amount of $40,265,000; and the United States, in the fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1881, only 653,246 tons, in value $2,831,463. 

The immense bulk of British exported coal is bituminous and 
much the larger part of the American exportation is anthracite. 
During the year 1881 the exportation of bituminous coal by the 
United States amounted to the contemptible exhibit of 191,038 tons, 
in value $739,532, and of this the West Indies, Mexico, Central and 
South America received only 78,672 tons, of the value of $328,726. 

In order to show how completely this trade is controlled by 
Great Britain the following statement taken from the statistics of 
the respective countries, and from the reports of our Consuls in 
those countries to the State Department is appended. The .expor¬ 
tation to these countries is particularly referred to, because they will 
constitute the nearest and most inevitable market for our Gulf coal 
in the future: 


BITUMINOUS COAL 1 T 8 7 8 ' 1 ’ . 

imported INTO [ From U. States. 

■ 1881. 

From G. Britain. 

United States of Columbia. 

Mexico..... 

$ 23,564 

7,326 

$ 39,000 

1 • 156,000 

225,000 

948 OKI 
350,000 
551,193 
437,000 
30,000 
117,000 
207,000 
185,000 
127,000 

389,COO 

British Guiana. .. 

Brazil.....7“ . ■ 

1,024 

Uruguay . 

Argentine .Republic..... 


Chili. 


Bolivia..... 


Peru. 


British West India. 

1,804 
- 2,400 
20,038 
267,541 

French West Indies.. 

Danish West Indies.... 

Spanish West Indies.. ... 

Total...T77T7T7.77TUT77T 

$323,698 

$3,761,193 


The amount of American anthracite coal exported to the same 
countries during the same period amounted to $168,306, but as the 
exportation of British coal to those countries was mainly bituminous 
coal, a fairer comparison is made by referring to that kind of coal 
in treating of American exportation. When we compare the total 
output of the British mines with those of our own and then the 
ratio of our exportation with that of Great Britain, the facts are not 
flattering to us, but when we are confronted with the statement of 
























11 


the National Bureau of Statistics, that in the year ending June 30, 
1881, the^ importation of British bituminous coal into the United 
States —having to pay a duty of seventy-five cents per ton—was 
$2,008,974, and the exportation of American bituminous coal to all 
countries was only $739,532, it is a subject of concern to all friends 
of American trade. The wooden sailing ship is fast disappearing 
from the seas. In twenty-five'yeai's the great bulk of the ocean¬ 
carrying trade will be done by large, commodious freight steam¬ 
ships. The completion of the Panama canal, Eads’ ship-railway 
across Tehuantepec, and the possibility of the construction of the 
Florida ship canal, will make this matter of coal supply a subject 
for the consideration of the entire people of the United States. 
The Gulf of Mexico ought by right to be an American lake, but if 
we have to depend on foreign countries for the supply of cheap 
steam coal we never can maintain our position as a great maritime 
and commercial nation in those waters. 

The proposition is self evident on the palpable facts now exist¬ 
ing that unless a cheaper source of supply is had in this country, so 
as to render us entirely independent of both Great Britain and 
Australia on the Atlantic and Pacific, we shall see England main¬ 
taining the control of the Isthmus of Panama as absolutely as she 
now does that of Suez. 

CHEAP COAL ON THE GULF. 

There can be no longer any doubt as to the cost of coal deliv¬ 
ered at Mobile by barges from the Warrior. It is solely a question 
of transportation. Steam coal (run of mine) is mined in Alabama 
and delivered on the railroad at $1.25 a ton at the highest, paying 
the mine owner a good profit. The rate of transportation to Mo¬ 
bile, $2.00 per ton, practically prohibits exportation, since steam 
coal is delivered free on board ship in England at $2.50 per ton, 
and until cheap water transportation is provided, American coal 
cannot be exported from any Gulf port. 

A most excellent authority on this subject is Col. Horace 
Harding, the Assistant United States Engineer of the Warrior 
River Improvement. In a carefully considered paper, in which 
the cost of mining coal on the Warrior and transporting it in barges 
to the Gulf is fully and ably treated, he sums up the following 
result: 


Mining. 

Handling.. 

- 53 C- 

... 10 

per ton. 

4 4 

Transportation by river to Mobile. 


4 4 

Unloading and storing. 

.25 

4 4 

General management. 


4 4 

Profit. 

.50 

4 4 


$i.yS per ton. 


“ That the above estimate of cost by river transportation is 
approximately correct, is indicated by the fact that coal from the 
Kanawha, Alleghany, and other streams, is sold at Cincinnati in 
barge for $1.75 per ton. Allowing the usual margin of 50c. per 
ton for profit, the cost would be $1.25, which, leaving out the item 
for unloading, is about the same as figured out above.” 

The great advantage possessed by the coals in the Warrior 
basin is the ease with which they may be mined. Practically they 
may be in many places shoveled from the river bank into the coal 
barges, the inclination of the seariis rarely exceeding 3 0 . 

This extraordinary condition of things must necessarily reduce 
materially the foregoing estimate of cost, and it may be assumed 
that coal may be mined from the seams on the river, loaded in 
barges and delivered at tide water in the Gulf at $1.50 per ton. 

In 1850 Prof. Tuomy, the State Geologist, wrote of the coal 
in the Warrior basin: “Fo»r some years to come a considerable 
quantity of coal will be procured in the beds of the streams or 
where it is but loosely covered by loose, superficial beds, and, in 
either case, without the investment of much capital. The slight 
inclination of the beds and the physical features of the country will 
always tend to lessen the expense of mining operations on the 
Warrior. ”—( Geological Report, 1850.) During a casual examina¬ 
tion of the Warrior basin, made in the summer of 1883, the writer 
was amazed at the enormous developments of coal. It could be 
seen in the beds of the rivers and creeks, seam over seam, on the 
steep banks of the Warrior, in many places eight feet in thickness 
and rarely under twenty-eight inches* Truly they are entitled to 
the appellation of coal fields, for in many places the superficial 
covering consists of a few feet of clay and shale and the coal may 
be literally dug from the earth. 

Regarding the character of the seams on the Mulberry Branch 
of the Warrior, Prof. Tuomy say's: “A very remarkable change 









13 


takes place in the character of the coal on this branch of the War¬ 
rior. It becomes very much cleaner and harder. Although it 
breaks into small pieces it rarely produces much slack, and as it 
comes from the bed it resembles screened coal. This of all the 
coal in the State will best bear transportation on account of its 
superior hardness.” 

He then proceeds to give the measurements of twenty outcrops 
of different seams, measuring in thickness of seams from three to 
eight feet. Of one of these seams he says: 

“ On Lost creek some fine exposures occur near the point 
where the Jasper road crosses it. They are only seen, however, in 
the bed of the creek. A section of the principal bed is as follows : 

Coal.. . . . io inches. 

Slate. 1 .14 “ 

Coal..48 “ 

“ There are at least four other beds super-imposed on this, 
which appear higher up the stream. One is remarkable for having 
a seam of cannel coal on the top of the common coal. The depth 
of the water prevented me making an examination oS this valuable 
bed, but it is interesting to know that cannel coal exists in the 
State, and I have no doubt that future explorations will bring 
thicker seams to our knowledge.” 

“ These sections will give, a fairer view of the Warrior coal 
field than a whole chapter of description. They are, however, 
limited to a small portion of the entire area, but it is a part that 
must always command attention on account of its vicinity to the river. 

“ Notwithstanding the definite character and value of the in¬ 
formation presented here, no one feels more sensibly than I do how 
very inadequately it represents this magnificent formation.”*— 
Geological Report, 1850. 

Thus wrote thig accomplished geologist and scientific scholar 
thirty-three years ago. His luminous mind grasped the idea of 
controlling with these splendid coal fields the supply of coal to the 
Gulf and South American countries, and he was the_ first to give 
accurate information with a view of advancing this great commer¬ 
cial enterprise. 

The extraordinary developments of coal along the banks of 
the Warrior from the mouth of Lost creek to Black Water creek 
for a distance of over twenty-five miles, are almost incredible. 

* Note.— This magnificent property from which coal was largely mined.iu 1855 and 
up to 1860, is situated on the western hank of the Warrior, and is now owned hy the Gulf 
Coal and Coke Company of Mobile. , * 







14 


It is in this section so highly spoken of by Prof. Tuomy, that the 
seams are thickest and the coal freest from slate.. Thus on the 
western side of the river, about the mouth of Lost creek (itself 
navigable for a considerable distance), three seams of coal outcrop 
in the bank. Two of those are above the reach of high water and 
the third or lowest at the water level.' The t 6 p seam was exten¬ 
sively mined up to i860, when the war put a stop to the business. 
This .is known as the Van Hoose mine. The seam is forty-two 
inches thick, has an inclination upwards of 3 0 ,, is self-draining, 
and the coal cars were propelled by their own weight from the 
interior of the mine to the coal' chute on the bank and the coal de¬ 
livered to the barges. This coal was largely used by the Mobile 
Gas Company, and pronounced superior to any coal used for that 
purpose in the city. 

About forty feet below the floor of this mine another seam 
outcrops in the steep banks of the Warrior. It is thirty-eight 
inches thick, with ^four-inch stratum of black slate almost central 
in the seam. , 

The lowest seam appears above low water on the river. It is 
said to be six feet in thickness, and was raised in the river in low 
stages of water and boated to Mobile in former days. 

Ascending Ldst creek to the crossing of the Georgia Pacific 
the coal is found in the bed of that stream in the banks on both 
sides and on the small streams running into it. Notably among 
the last are Falls creek, Wolf creek, Fanny’s branch and Cane 
creek, now celebrated for the splendid character of the coals 
found in such great abundance along these water courses. Higher 
up the rive:r, Qn the very bank, are the celebrated Mount Carmel 
seams, which are thus described by J. B. Killebrew. 

“ On the western side of Black Warrior, a small stream called 
Frog-Ague comes in from the west and enters the river near Mount 
Carmel. On the banks of this stream a magnificent seam of coal 
•six feet in thickness crops out for thirty or forty feet, until it is con¬ 
cealed by the debris which has fallen from the overhanging banks. 
The coal from this seam is very hard and pure, having a large . 
amount of mineral charcoal in its composition, which is an infalli¬ 
ble sign of coal high in carbon. Coal was mined and shipped 
from this place for many years. 

“ Below this seam, some twenty or thirty feet, another seam 
three feet in thickness occurs, and forty feet below this a third 
seam, five fa^et thick, occurs in the banks of Cane creek, and below 


15 


this again a fourth seam is reported which is said to be ten feet 
thick, though owing to the muddiness and depth of the water I 
was not enabled to examine it. Its existence is vouched forg by 
highly credible witnesses. So it appears’ that in this locality four 
large seams of coal, measuring in the aggregate over twenty feet, 
occur, and the quality is equal in every respect to the best coal 
which I saw from the best mines in Alabama. It is very hard, 
comparatively free from sulphur, breaking with a smooth fracture, 
and capable of being transported to any distance. It resembles, 
the Pratt coal in having straight parallel sides, in its irregular 
lamination, in its semi-lustrous appearance, and in having irregular 
spots of shiny bituminous matter appearing on a lustreless surface. 

The seams of coal contiguous to water transportation which 
are likely to be mined on the improvement of the river, are alone 
referred to here, as it is quite apparent that from the cheapness 
with which they may be mined, the thickness of the seams, their 
freedom from slate, and their general excellence, they will event¬ 
ually furnish the steam coal necessary for the supply of the Gulf. 

In a more recent report on the portion of the Warrior basin 
referred to,-Prof. Stubbs (Professor Mineralogy and Chemistry in 
the Agricultural College of Alabama), says: 

“ Heading Lost creek jye descended on its right bank till oppo¬ 
site Holly Grove, stopping on West Fork to examine the coal out¬ 
crops already mentioned. Near Holly Grove, on Lost creek, are 
the famous Baiter Bede, separated from each other by about ten 
feet, the lower being over three feet and the upper nearly two feet. 
These beds have been worked in the past, and are said to have 
yielded coal qf very fine quality. The relative position of these seams 
and their thicknesses, would indicate a continuation of the seams 
mentioned above. If they are, then we would have them dipping 
to the east and south, with rate of dip and rate of fall of stream 
about equal. This would indicate that the centre of our basin was 
east of Holly Grove. Along the bottom of Lost creek, in this 
vicinity, coal is constantly exposed, varying in thickness from two 
to three'feet. At Guttery’s canoe hole, on Dr. Miller’s land and 
other places, the Baker seams occur. There is coal in the well of 
Dr. Hendon, at Holly Grove. Passing on down Lost creek we 
find coal outcropping at Boschill and Rutledge’s. At the inter¬ 
section of Cane and Lost creeks, numerous outcrops of great thick¬ 
ness and excellent quality occur. Coal has been mined from bed 
of Cane creek on lands of David Cobb, and is pronounced by Prof.. 
Smith, as a ‘hard, bright coal, with sufficient bony coal to make 
it a fine stocking coal, but not enough to injure it as a fuel.’ Near 
Williams’ mill, on Lost creek, a seam appears^ in a small ravine, 
some distance above level of the creek. Lower down the creek. 


16 


below the mouth of Wolfe, a seam of coal appears in many places, 
besides forming the bed of the river for several miles. At Mrs. 
Price’s, on Falls branch, it is three feet thick. A shaft was once 
sunk on left bank of Lost creek near this place, and considerable 
quantities of coal taken therefrom. This same seam occurs in 
several places on Fanny’s branch and on the east side of the War¬ 
rior river in Brake’s bend. West of the river, at Van Hoose’s mine, 
it has been profitably mined in ante bellum times. 

“ Baker’s creek, which empties into the Warrior river several 
miles above Lost and on same side, is noted for the many outcrops 
of coal near its headwaters. A seam three to four feet thick of' 
fine working and shipping qualities has been found on lands of Mrs. 
Bailey, Mr. Key, Mr. Tom Bradley, Mr. Jno. Gaines, Mt. Zion 
Church, and others. This is the same seam spoken of as the David 
Cobb’s seam on Lost creek, and occurs everywhere in southwest 
part, T. 15, R 7, upon the tributaries of Lost and Baker creeks.” 

As to quantity j therefore, there is the most abundant testimony 
to show that there are at least seveq workable seams of coal in this 
part of the Warrior field superimposed one ort the other. Towards 
the central basin of the Warrior, that part adjacent to the river, the 
seams are thicker and almost horizontal. There remains but one 
subject of investigation, and that is as to the quality of the coal. 

QUALITIES OF THE WARRIOR COALS. 

It may be safely stated that there are to be found in the great 
Warrior coal field every kind of bituminous coal necessary for 
the purposes of modern commerce and practical use. Although 
the greater part of coal mined at the present day is confined to the 
seams adjacent to the railroads, sufficient is known by experiment 
and analysis to justify the belief that the seams immediately open¬ 
ing on the river are even superior in quality to those mined on the 
Warrior plateau. The analyses show them to be of the very high¬ 
est character for steam, coke, gas, and domestic purposes, whilst 
they are infinitely superior to the soft coals of the plateau or eastern 
edge of the field in mechanical texture and firmness, bearing hand¬ 
ling, exposure to weather and transportation, without liability to 
disintegration. ' 

By the following- table drawn by the celebrated geologist, Sir 
Charles Lyell, and published in the Journal of the Geological 
Society of London, the comparative merits of coals from various 
localities are shown: 


17 


Names of Coals. Carbon. 

Alabama.80.96 

Pennsylvania.71.80 

Maryland—George Creek.70.76 

Maryland— Frostburgh.. 74.38 

Virginia—Blackheath.68.79 

Virginia—Midlothian .53.33 


Volatile Matter. Ashes. 


12.96 . 

6.08 

22 00 

6.20 

16.03 

13.21 

15.28 

10.34 

22.57 

8.64 

33.25 

13.42 


Prof. H. S. Yaryan gives the following for 
Sewanee—Tennessee.63.50 


29.90 


6.60 


The Virginia coals are regarded as the best bituminous coals 
in the 'United States. 

From a “report of experiments made on the evaporative 
power and other qualities of coals,” made in 1843, by the Navy 
Department of the United States (Ex. Doc., vol. 6, 1843), the fol¬ 
lowing results were had in reference to other coals, which are here 
referred to, to show the superior character of Alabama coal: 


Carbon. , Volatile Matter. Ashes. 


Liverpool, Eng... 
Newcastle, Eng.. 

Scotch. 

Pittsburg, Pa.... 
Carrollton, Ind.. 
Cumberland, Md 


54.90 

39.96 

.57.00 

3*. 83 

.48.81 

39.19 

.54.93 

36.76 

.58.44 

33.99 

.74.53 

12.67 


4.62 

5.40 

9.34 

7.07 

4.97 

10.34 


!Y<- In this list Cumberland coal stands highest in carbon, but when 
compared with Sir Charles Lyell’s analyses of Alabama coal it is 
found to be lower in carbon, equal in volatile matter and higher in ash. 

The following analyses are taken from the report of the State 
Geologist of Alabama, Prof. E. A. Smith, 1880, and‘are of coals 
adjacent to the river: 



Pratt j 
Seam ' 
in well. 

iWilliam’s 

Bank. 

Horse 

Creek. 

Frog- 

Ague. 

Jaggers. 

Townley I 
Bank. 

Lost 

Creek. 

Specific gravity. 

1.333 

1.312 

1.365 

1.401 

1.233 

1.310 

1.310 

Sulphur. 

.516 

.604 

.711 

.482 

.574 

.710 

.728 

Moisture. 

2.969 

1.525 

1.848 

3.799 

3.D91 

3.007 

2.261 

Volatile Matter. 

29.78 

26.17 

28.36 

26.22 

29.01 

29.08 

33.78 

Fixed Carbon. 

66.60 

66.02 

58.21 

57.32 

56.53 

63.35 

57.00 

Ash. 

6.664 

6.285 

11.57 

12.67 

* 11.33 

4.56 

6.95 


In the western edge of the central basin referred to, on the line 
of the newly constructed Georgia Pacific Railroad, a seam of doal 
has been opened and the business of mining regularly commenced. 
This seam is remarkable for having a thin se^m of cannel coal 
immediately overlying the bituminous. ' 

It is a beautiful, bright hard coal breaking into cubes, both in 
cleaveage and in the. plane of stratification, and is supposed to be 
the coming steam coal of the basin. 































18 


The most remarkable fact connected with this seam is its pro¬ 
bable extent. The same seam mixed with cannel coal may be 
found on Lost creek as described by Prof. Tuomy, and is in all 
probability the identical coal found on Fanny’s branch and Tom 
Bradley’s and David Cobb’s, as noted by Prof. Smith. 

If this be a correct conclusion, the discovery is of incalculable 
importance, as the seam covers over 150 square miles of coal terri¬ 
tory. A great part of which may be reached by water by Lost 
and Wolf creeks. 

This coal has been thoroughly tested by the Mobile and Ohio 
Railroad and pronounced as a steam coal most valuable. 

The following practical statement in relation to it is given : 

Cambria Iron Company, 
Johnstown, Pa., May 13, 1884. 

Col. W. Butler Duncan, President Mobile and Ohio R. R. Co., 
New York City: 

Sir—On# the 28th of last month I received through Agent 
McDowell, a barrel of Alabama coal from Corona. I am further 
informed that the bed from which this coal was taken is forty-five 
inches thick, with a parting of slaty matter about two to three 
inches thick. 

This coal belongs to the bituminous family and inherits the 
peculiar eleriients of southern and southwestern ,coals. It mines 
out in coarse lumps, exhibiting on the planes of its'bedding lenses 
of mineral charcoal. At right angles to the bedding plane thin 
slices of gypsum, which neutralize the effects of the sulphur in the 
combination. This coal is well adapted for use in locomotives or 
other steam engines, and should take a high rank as a steam coal 
from its large percentage of hydrogenous matter and low ash. It 
will also be found valuable for household purposes and heating 
generally. It will not make a good blacksmith coal, although it 
could be used for the purpose in ordinary wants. I submit'the 
analysis of three coals so that you can compare the parts: 


Localities. Volatile Matter. Fixed Carbon. Ash. Sulphur. Phos. 

Connellsville, Pa.31.38 60.30 7.24 1.09 .01 

Illinois, S. East.41.27 51.16 3,94 .706 .... 

iporona. Ala. 40.45 52.02 6.04 1.49 . 015 


" Very good coke is being made, at St. Johns, Ills., by the Illi¬ 
nois Central Coal Mining Company. It will be noticed how 
closely your cb$l is allied to the Illinois coal—its western neighbor. 
They using at /latter place a special oven for coking—the 
Thomas’ patent oven, winch has given very fair results. In this 
connection it may be noted that the utilization of the lye products 
of coal in coking is assuming an important position in connection, 
with the coke industry. 





19 


Your coal, under a fair sampling of the lot placed for my use, 
shows special adaptability as follows: 

1. Steam generating purposes. 

2. Household purposes. 

. 3. Coking. 

4. Gas Making. 

5. Blacksmithing. 

All that is practicable in its preparation for any of the above 
uses is clean mining. ' Very respectfully, 

[Signed] Jno. Fulton, 

General Mining Engineer, C. I. Co. 


Laboratory of Cambria Iron Company, 
Johnstown, Pa., May 13, 1884. 
Analysis of sample of coal, received from Mobile and Ohio 
Railroad Company: 

Alabama Coal—Sample sent by Mr. Fulton, received at 
Laboratory May 1, 1884. 

Remarks—Sample from Col. W. B. Duncan. President Mo¬ 
bile and Ohio Railroad Company. 


Carbon (fixed)..... 

Phosphorus.. 

Sulphur. 

Ash. 

Total Volatile Matter. 

Combustible Volatile Matter 
Coke—58.81 percent. 

[Signed] 


. 52.02 

.YY.YY.YY.Y.YY.Y. YYY.Y.YYY 1.49 

. 6.04 

.40.45 

.38.59 

T. T. Morrell, Chemist. 


.ois 


The most accurate and practical test ever made of Alabama 
coals was made by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in 1878 
with a stationary boiler, to ascertain their evaporative value. 
Taking Pittsburg as a standard, this shows the relative compara¬ 
tive value of the coals used on that railroad. 



Pounds of 
water evap- 
rated by one 
pound of fuel. 

Per cent, 
of ash. 

Relative 

evaporative 

value. 

Pittsburg coal, rune of the mine. 

8.16 

13 

100. 

Warrior’coal, run of the mine. 

H. 15 

16 

99.9 

Pine Hill, block coal, (Ky.). 

7.63 

10 6-100 

93.5 

Livingston, run of the mine. 

7.69 

19 8-100 

93. 

Pittsburg, not screened. 

7.44 

13 

9 . 

Guthrie, nut coal. (Jvy.. 

7.00 

22 

85.7 

Pine Hill, run of the mines, (Ky.).. 

6.96 

18 

85.3 

Pender Mines, run of the mines, "No l. 

6.94 

20-5-100 

85. 

Pine Hill, run of the mines, No. 2. 

6.77 

16 

82.9 

New Castle, run of the mines, (Ala. 1 . . 

6.58 

22 

80.6 

Saint Charles, run of the mines, (Ky.). 

6.51 

21 3-100 

79.8 

Saint Charles, nut coal. (Ky.)...... 

6.47 

17 

79.3 

Cahawba, slack, (Ala.). . 

6.09 

27 

74.6 

Fish Point, run of the mine, (Ky.). 

7.18 

19 6-100 

88. 

Cahawba, black-shale bed, (Ala.). 

7.09 

12 5-100 

86. 

Sewanee, select, (Tenn.)... 

6.57 

8 

80.5 



































20 


'X 


It will be se*en from the foregoing statement that the value of . 
Warrior coal, as a generator of steam, is but a trifle lower than 
Pittsburg, and almost equal to it. It will also be borne in mind 
that it came from a new mine on the very edge or rim of the War¬ 
rior plateau, whilst the Pittsburg coal has been mined for many 
years. 

“For the coking character of the Black Warrior coals, the 
subjoined analysis of the best, both from this field and the Cahawba, 
are given: 

Water. BitumeD. Fixed Carbon. Ash. Sulphur. 


Warrior coal.16 25.09 72.14 2.27 .34 

Cahawba.17 25.97 70.10 3.68 .17 


GAS COAL. 

“ The value of coal for the production of gas, other things 
being equal, will depend upon the amount of hydrogen they con¬ 
tain.” In the five following specimens Sir Charles Lyell found 
the hydrogen to stand thus: 


Clover Hill, Va. 5.23 

Black Heath, Va.!. 4.08 

Deep Run, Va. 4.77 

Powells, Va. 4.?3 

Alabama.. 5.13 


“ There are also highly bituminous coals present among the 
beds, belonging to the Warrior basin, which, being the best for 
gas purposes, analyses of two of them are here given: 

Bituminous Fixed 

Combustible Matter. Carbon. Ash. Water. Sulphur. 


No. 1. 40.60 54.07 3.09 1.18 1.06 

No. 2 . 34.49 60.09 4.32 . 93 .17 


In 1874 a cargo of Alabama coal was shipped to Havana and 
sold to the Gas Company there. We are permitted to make use of 
an extract from the letter received after it had teen tested. 


“ Peter Knowles, Esq.: “ Havana, 13 March, 1874. 

“ Dear Sir—As you are aware, we sold the cargo of Alabama 
■£oal, ex-sch. Evaline, to the Gas Company at $9.00, Spanish gold, 
that they might fairly test the same. They got the following 
results: 

Montevallo gives. . .. 8750 feet of gas. 

Helena gives.'x. 8743 feet of gas. 

New Castle gives. .. v,.. 8781 feet of gas, and 1621 pounds of coke. 

The latter will suit them best as it gives about 200 pounds per ton 
more coke than Liverpool. * * * * * 

“ Yours, very truly, 

“Lawton Bros.” 















21 


The value of coal, as ordinary fuel, is derived from the carbon 
and hydrogen. Now these analyses in this relation settle the posi¬ 
tion of Alabama coal. 

• (Prof. Tuomy, Geo. Rep. Ala., 1859.) 

Chemical analyses of coals serve only for comparison, the 
physical structure being of at least equal importance. The chemist 
determines the materials which make ,up the coal, but not the man¬ 
ner in which the constituents are arranged. The heating power is 
largely dependant upon physical structure, and can only be deter- 
/ mined by actual experiment. While the analyses given above 
place these coals on a par with the best bituminous coals of this 
country, their physical properties, it is believed, will give to them 
a very prominent position in the markets of the world.”—Professor 
Stubbs. 

But the practical value of American steam coal does not rest 
on the foregoing statements. For the past five years the govern¬ 
ment of the United States has been using Warrior coal for steam 
purposes on its revenue cutters, coast-survey vessels, lighthouse 
tenders and engineer boats in the Gulf. The engineer officers of 
the Revenue Marine, gentlemen thoroughly skilled in their profes¬ 
sion and familiar with the steaming qualities of coals furnished the 
revenue cutters all over the country, bear the very highest testimony 
to the quality of the Alabama coal. 

We are permitted to use the following statements made by the 
chief engineers of the United States revenue steamers, supplied in 
Mobile with, coal: 

U. S. Revenue Marine Str. Louis McLane, 
• Mobile, Ala, January 29, 1884. 
Gen. Burke, Collector of Customs, Mobile, Ala.: 

Sir—Agreeable to your request, asking for a practical state¬ 
ment of Alabama coals as compared with English coals for steam¬ 
ing purposes, I can say, that from an experience of nearly twenty 
years, I have not found an English or other foreign coal that would 
compare with the coal of .the Warrior mines of Alabama. This 
coal is a good free burner with natural draft; is free from clinker, 
and has all the qualities of an excellent steaming coal. 

Very respectfully, 

Samuel H. Magee, 

Engineer in charge. 


£2 


U. S. Revenue Steamer Seward, 

Mobile, Ala., November 16, 1881. 

J. W. Burke, Esq., Mobile: 

Dear Sir: 

Your note requesting my experience and observation in regard 
to the steam coal of Alabama is received, and I beg leave to say in 
reply, in my opinion the Warrior coal is the best substitute for 
Cumberland that I have known, and is an excellent blacksmith 
coal. The Alabama mines are new and their yield are scarcely 
yet representative in quality. Some of them may compare favor¬ 
ably with the older mines of the Middle and Eastern States. 

Respectfully, J. E. Jeffries, 

Chief Engineer United States Revenue Marine, 
Revenue Steamer Seward. 

From all sources come the testimony that, for the production 
of steam, the soft coal of the Warrior is superior to Welsh steam 
coal, and for the purposes of the household and the production of 
gas the compact harder coals of the Warrior basin are unexcelled. 

economic relations. 

' From the foregoing statements it is shown that the quantity 
and quality of Alabama coal are all that can be desired. 

The next subject we shall consider is that of the supply at tide 
water, in order to build up a great national industry in a section of 
the country where it is required as an absolute necessity. 

[report of u. s. engineer, maj. dameell.] 

NATIONAL IMPORTANCE OF THE WORK OF IMPROVEMENT. 

“The advantage to Alabama of a navigable river which shall 
traverse'the most important coal field in.the State, and which shall 
afford cheap transportation to the Gulf, not only for the coal but 
also of the other products of the country, cannot be overestimated. 
A moment’s reflection will show that however great may be the 
benefit to the State of this work of improvement, the advantages 
to the national government will not be less. 

An unfailing supply of good and cheap coal at the Gulf is of 
the first importance to the navy. The s’upply of coal has hitherto 
come by the Ohio river. During the winter months, as is well 
known, traffic upon that river is often interrupted by ice, and we 
have lately seen that even during the summer months a coal famine 
may be experienced in the Lower Mississippi and Gulf regions 
because of low-water in the Ohio. 


23 


During the time that the Ohio river is closed by ice, the 
Warrior would be in its best condition for transporting coal, and 
there is no likelihood that transportation on this river will ever 
be interrupted by reason of low-water, for during the unpre¬ 
cedented drought of the past summer (1879) there was always a 
sufficiency of water in the Warrior, had it been provided with 
locks and dams, to have furnished uninterrupted transportation for 
the^coal barges. (Report U. S. Engineer Warrior improvement, 
1880.) 

SURVEY OF BLACK WARRIOR RIVER, FROM TUSCALOOSA TO FORKS 
OF SIPSEY AND MULBERRY, ALABAMA. 

Office of United States Engineer, 

Mobile, Ala., August 15 , 1880 . 

General: I have the honor of submitting herewith a report of 
a survey of the Black Warrior River from Tuscaloosa to Sipsey 
Fork, made by assistant, Eugene A. Smith. The survey was made 
in compliance with the provisions of the act of ; Congress approved 
March 3, 1879. 

The Warrior River is navigable as far as Tuscaloosa during high 
water; the principal obstructions to its navigation, at low water, to 
that point, being sunken logs, snags, gravel bars, and a few rock- 
reefs. Above Tuscaloosa the river changes its character entirely, and 
in its present condition is not navigable at any stage of the river, 
forming a series of lakes and falls over rock-ledges which completely 
impede navigation. 

On account of this difference in the character of what are called 
the Lower Warrior (from Demopolis to Tuscaloosa) and the Upper 
Warrior, (above Tuscaloosa to Locust Fork,) separate estimates are 
submitted for each. For the improvement of the former, the cost of 
two channels, one 50 feet wide by 3 feet deep at low water, and one 
80 feet wide by 4 feet deep at low water, by means of remqving logs, 
gravel, and'rocks, and the construction of jetties, have been esti¬ 
mated for, while for the latter, or Upper Warrior, the only practicable 
method of improvement, slack-water navigation, by means of dams 
and locks, has been considered. 

The Black Warrior River penetrates the very centre of the coal 
and iron region of Alabama, and its opening to navigation as far as 
Locust Fork would furnish cheap water-transportation to the Gulf 
for the finest coal and iron-ore in the State, as well as for the agri¬ 
cultural products of the country adjacent to the river, and I consider 
its permanent improvement very desirable. The value, to the Gov¬ 
ernment, of securing cheap and easy access to the Warrior coal-fields 
would be very great, and might, in certain contingencies, become of 
vast importance. 


24 


The report shows that the river can be improved by the use of 
locks and dams, at an estimated cost of $400,533, $760,000, or 
$1,200,000, according to the character of the work, so as to accom¬ 
modate the business for which the improvement is especially in¬ 
tended—the transportation of coal in barges from the coal-fields. 
The enormous quantity of coal in the country through which this 
portion of the river flows, and its superior quality and accessibility, 
as shown by this report, proves conclusively the importance of the 
improvement which would render it available for the use of the 
government, the people of the Gulf States, and the steamers of all 
nations employed in the commerce of the Gulf. 

The complete improvement, with masonry, dam, and locks of 
cut stone, at an estimated cost of $1,200,000, which would be of a 
permanent character when completed, is therefore recommended as 
required and warranted, and an appropriation of $200,000 is re¬ 
commended to begin this work. 

The river is at present navigable at high-water only, and even 
then sufficiently dangerous to put a stop to all commerce on the 
river, although barges have frequently been floated down to Mobile 
loaded with coal. 

The amount of commerce that would spring up with a river ihi- 
proved as suggested, is only conjectural, but would evidently be suf¬ 
ficient to warrant the outlay, when it is considered this section of 
the country and the commerce of the Gulf is now supplied princi¬ 
pally from Pittsburg by a route often closed in the \yinter months by 
ice, a contingency to which this would not be liable. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

A. N. DAMRELL, Captain of Engineers. 
Brig. Gen. H. G. Wright, 

Chief of Engineers, JJ. 8. A. 

In this connection the national character of this enterprise was 
recognized as far back as 1828, under the administration of Presi¬ 
dent Jackson, for in that year Congress declared, that “ the Tennessee, 
Coosa , Cahawba and Black Warrior rivers , within the State of 
Alabama, shall be forever free from toll for all property belonging to the 
United States, andfor all persons in their service, and for all citizens of 
the United States, except as to such tolls as may be allowed by act of Con¬ 
gress;' and this law may now be found under title “ Rivers and 
Harbors.” Sec. 5244, Revised Statutes United States. 

In 1836 sales of the public lands were made in Alabama, out of 
which a fund was created for the improvement of those rivers, and 
some of the money so raised was expended on the Warrior. The 
improvements were, however, of such a character as to be of little 
value. “The plan appears to be good but the execution was defec- 


25 


tive,” says Prof. Tuomy. “The jetties were in many cases not con¬ 
nected with the banks, and not reaching above high water, become 
dangerous submerged islands to boats coming down at high water. 
Later improvements were altogether conducted with the view to the 
removal of obstructions to high water navigation, and consequently 
it became necessary to undo in many cases what had been done at 
considerable expense.” . 

These facts are mentioned to show that those rivers, and espe¬ 
cially the Warrior, were the subjects of national solicitude fifty-five 
years ago.. The longheaded men of those days saw the splendid 
future before this magnificent coal field and recognized the fact by 
declaring that the streams that led into it should be forever free to 
all citizens of the United States, £reat national coal channels, or 
highways, which at some day would be called to play a most im¬ 
portant part in the prosperity and commercial purposes of the 
country. Nor are we now without the most convincing proofs of 
their wisdom, for this may be seen from the large saving made by 
the United States Government at the Gulf ports since the introduc¬ 
tion of Alabama coal. As late as 1878 the Government paid for 
the coal furnished its vessels at the Gulf ports from $8.00 to $12.00 
per ton. To-day coal is furnished at the rate of $3.40 per ton of 
2000 lbs. at Mobile, and the consequent saving to the Government 
has been equal to $40,000 in three years. This annual saving on a 
few vessels is equal to a sum sufficient to pay the annual interest on 
the money necessary to rend'er the Warrior navigable to coal barges 
nine months in th^ year at the rate the Government pays for money. 

Now, the price of coal being $3.40, and the cost of railroad 
transportation being $2.00 of that amount, it is quite evident that 
unless a cheaper means of transportation be provided, this great 
coal deposit will remain as it is, supplying only the home demand of 
those localities adjacent to the field. The cost of opening the 
Warrior to navigation will, in a few years, pay for itself in furnishing 
to the Government coal at $1.50 per ton less than it now pays, and 
when these figures are applied to the vast commerce of the Gulf and 
the Navy the subject is one of incalculable importance. 

In 1874 Congress voted a small appropriation for the survey 
and examination of the Warrior, and in 1875 the report of that 
examination, conducted«by an eminent engineer under the direction of 
Maj. A. N. Damrell, (U. S. Engineer Corps), was presented to Congress. 


26 


Again in 1879 another examination and survey was authorized 
by Congress, and the report of Prof. Eugene A. Smith, the accom¬ 
plished State Geologist, was the result. This report, which has 
done so much towards bringing the immense mineral resources of 
the Warrior basin to public notice, was made in 1880. 

The report shows that the river can be improved by the use of 
locks and dams at an estimated co^t respectively of $400,553, 
$760,000, and $1,200,000, depending on the permanency and char¬ 
acter of the work to be done. The estimated cost of the improve¬ 
ment, as presented by the report of Col. Horace Harding in 1875, 
is $431,000. 

It may be thought by some that the expense of mining on the 
Warrior river is placed at too low an estimate judging from the 
expense of mining' in other parts of the country and in England 
and Europe, but when it is considered that the mining in those 
countries is all done thousands of feet deep in the bowels of the 
earth and in a manner involving immense cost and mechanical 
effort it is not to be wondered at. Some of the British shafts are 
2500 feet deep and the Kuttenberger pit in Bohemia had to be 
abandoned on account of the high temperature at.a depth of 3,778 feet. 

For years to come millions tons of coal may be mined in the 
Warrior basin by drift mining and by the means of slopes with a 
very gentle inclination, and delivered to barges at the very mouth 
of the mine. 

At the present time coal is lower than ever known before, as 
appears from the following list of prices taken from the “Coal 
Trade Journal” of January 2d, 1884. 

WHOLESALE PRICES OF BITUMINOUS COAL. 

The following is a recapitulation of the nominal prices-current 
for this variety of coal at that date. 


Cumberland, at Baltimore.‘.$3 00 at N. Y. $4 25 

Cumberland, at Georgetown. 3 00 at N. Y. 4 25 

Clearfield, at Baltimore. 3 00 at N. Y. 4 25 

Clearfield, at Philadelphia. 3 50 at N. Y. 4 25 

Clearfield, at South Amboy. 4 00 at N. Y. 4 25 

Westmoreland and Penn Gas, South Amboy. 4 50 at N. Y. 4 75 

Youghioglieny. Scotts, at Baltimore. 3 60 at N. Y. ' 4 75 

Montauk Gas, at Baltimore. 3 50 at N. Y. 4 75 

Cannelton Gas Cannel, at Newport News. 8 50 at N. Y. 9 50 

Provincial Gas and Steam coal. at N. Y. 3 75 

Konawha Gas, at Newport News, Ya. 3 50 at N. Y. 4 75 


And yet it is confidently expected thaf, with water transporta¬ 
tion on the Warrior and the Cahaba unimpeded to the Gulf, the 













27 


pric'e of steam coal can, by utilizing the abundant sources of Amer- * 
ica economical methods, be reduced to $2.00 per ton at Mobile. * 

WHOLESALE PRICES OF BITUMINOUS COAL IN ENGLAND. 

The following authentic information on this point is deemed 
sufficient: 

United States Consulate, 
Richmond Buildings, 26 Raphael Street, 
Liverpool, April 10, 1884. 

J. W. Burke, Esq., Mobile. 

Dear Sir: 

In reply to your inquiry respecting the price of steam coal at 
this port, I enclose herewith, prices as given by two old established 
firms of coal merchants who are large exporters of coal to South 


America. Respctfully yours, 

S. B. Packard, Consul. 

PRICES. 

Lairds Welsh Hartley Steam.10s. 

Wigan Gas Coal.10s. 6d. 

Wigan Steam Coal. 9s. 6d. 


The price of steam coal at present in England is unusually low. 
Cargoes were shipped to Aspinwall last year for which 11s. 6d. to 
12s. 6d. per ton were paid. Add to this the freight at £ 1 . ($5.00) 
per ton* and the price of steam coal laid down at Aspinwall will cost 
at the lowest estimate £ 1 , xos. per ton or about $7.50 in American 
money. 

comparison of distances. 

The distance from Mobile to Aspinwall is 1310 miles, and from 
Newcastle, England, (a principal exporting point for steam coal) 
5340 miles. The American ship loading at Mobile can make at least 
three voyages and deliver three cargoes whilst the British vessel is 
delivering but one and has returned to her home port to reload. 
The case stands better with the West Indie ansd Mexico, which 
countries are at our doors. With Alabama coal delivered at Mobile 
at $2.00 per ton, we would see one of the proudest of American 
commercial triumphs. 

Even with the price of British coal as low as Alabama we still 
would have the preponderating advantage in distance. But in the 
matter of cost at tide water it is absolutely certain that with the wa¬ 
ter ways to the Gulf of Mexico open to navigation coal may be de¬ 
livered at the tide at a lower price than in Great Britain. 





28 


MOBILE THE GREAT COAL EXPORTING DEPOT OF THE FUTURE. 

The matter of handling coal at tide-water and the facilities for 
exportation are subjects second only in importance to the transpor¬ 
tation by water to the sea coast. There is not a city on the Ameri¬ 
can sea board so eligibly situated for this purpose than the Gulf City. 
The Bay of Mobile is a beautiful sheet of water, in length about 
thirty-two miles with an average width of ten miles. It is perfectly 
.land-locked, a vessel once over the outer bar being perfectly safe in 
all kinds of weather. Nature has done much for this magnificent 
harbor. 

In the year 1771, one hundred and thirteen years ago, the Brit¬ 
ish Admiralty published a Chart of Mobile Bay, which is now, in 
possession of Major A. N. Damrell, U. S. Engineer Corps, in Mobile. 

At that time there-was but ten feet of water on the outer bar or 
entrance to the bay. At the present date there is twenty-four feet, at 
mean low tide. This has been accomplished by the operations of the 
forces of nature, the winds and tides, and whilst millions of dollars 
have been expended on improving the approaches to the various har¬ 
bors on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, not one cent has ever been, ex¬ 
pended on the bar at the entrance to Mobile Bay. 

It is stated as a fact, ascertained by the engineers, that a greater 
volume of water flows daily out of Mobile Bay into the ocean 
than that which is discharged by the Mississippi at Port Eads. This 
is made up by the reflux of the tides, supplemented by the volume of 
water from the rivers of the State, nearly all of which flow into the 
gulf at Mobile. Thus, this immense volume of water flowing out by 
the ship channel at Fort Morgan represents one force, that of the 
scouring one, whilst the southeast gales and the sea represent the 
other, piling up the sand, forming a natural jetty or bank, the result 
of which is a natural and constantly increasing deepening of the 
channel. 

Inside of the bar the water deepens, until in front of Fort Mor¬ 
gan there is an average depth of fifty feet. This magnificent harbor 
is capable of floating in security the navies of the world. 

The improvement of the .channel from the lower anchorage to 
the city (26 miles) was begun in 1827,. but no permanent results were 
obtained until the improvement commenced in 1870, whicl# has .re¬ 
sulted in giving a ship channel of 17 feet at mean low tide to the city 


29 


wharves. This work is found to be permanent, as there has been no 
•evidence of filling since the completion of the cut (75 feet wide), and 
the material dredged is a stiff blue clay, comparatively free from sand 
■or alluvial deposit. 

For miles along the shores of this magnificent sheet of water and 
along the banks of Mobile River, the most abundant facilities for un¬ 
loading and loading coal exist. Quick to take advantage of the 
i rising tide of prosperity now flowing in upon the city since the com¬ 
pletion of the ship channel by the Government of the United States, 
those accurate commercial barometers, the railrq^ds, have construc¬ 
ted magnificent wharves on the city front, and to the enterprise of 
the Louisville and Nashville and the Mobile and Ohio Railroads, 
Mobile is indebted for wharves, which for completeness and capacity 
are rarely excelled by any port in the country. 

Crowded with ships from every clime, unloading and loading 
their cargoes in front of the' city, steamers discharging their loads of 
cotton brought down from the upper country, steamtugs busily mov¬ 
ing about among the fleet or towing immense rafts of timber, one 
cannot help wondering at the magical change brought about by the 
timely and profitable investment of a few thousand dollars by the 
Government in the improvement of this harbor. 

These are but the initial signs of the great commercial future 
that awaits Mobile. 

Situated at the point where the rivers of the State mingle their 
waters on their way to the ocean, at the head of one of the finest 
sheets of tide water in the country, Mobile has what nature bestowed 
upon her and what man cannot deprive her of, geographical position 
in relation to commerce. She is the only city in America where coal 
can be mined within 300 miles of the tide and floated with trifling 
expense thereto by the natural water ways, and this important fact 
alone must necessarily command for her commercial pre-eminence 
in proportion as those great natural advantages are developed and 
improved. 

The presentation of these views at this time is to draw public 
. attention to the national character of this work. The section of the 
Revised Statutes of the United States referred to absolutely confines 
the jurisdiction of the subject to Congress, for, no improvement with 
a view to remunerative profit can be made without its express 
sanction. It is a very remarkable fact that for fifty-five years little 


30 


or no effort commensurate with the importance of the subject, has 
been made to inform the country on this singular provision of the 
law by which Congress has assumed absolute control of those 
Alabama coal streams. It was only wherein the codification of the 
United States laws it became incorporated as a section of the 
Revised Statutes that the important fact was noticed. When Con¬ 
gress declared them forever “toll free” for all property of the United 
States, and to all citizens of the United States, it virtually undertook 
to nationalize them, and as they require improvement in order to 
render them navigable streams, the conclusion is inevitable that Con¬ 
gress had intended to give effect to this provision of the law and 
appropriate sufficient money to accomplish that which it absolutely 
prohibits to private enterprise. Any other construction would be 
senseless, since it would be forever closing to public use avenues to 
great wealth which by law were declared to be the property of the 
whole people of America. It is, therefore, due to the commercial 
interests of the country at large, to our just desire to maintain our 
ascendency in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Isthmus of Panama, to 
the people of Alabama, that the highways to those magnificent coal 
fields, the Warrior, Cahawba and Coosa, should be at once cleared 
of obstructions to navigation. When this entire subject is gone over 
and properly considered, it will be found second in importance only 
to the improvement of the Mississippi river, and in point of economy,, 
will reimburse the Government in a few years for the comparatively 
trifling outlay rendered necessary to complete an undertaking so^full 
of wealth to the country and so valuable an adjunct to our national 
power and progress.' 

In a recent article on “Iron Ship Building in Alabama” the New 
Orleans Tinies-Democrat has the following, which on account of its 
terseness and perspicuity we take the liberty of reproducing here: 

IRON SHIP BUILDING IN ALABAMA. 

A justly celebrated Southern writer has lately called the atten¬ 
tion of Northern capitalists to the promising field for an investment 
of capital in the coal and iron deposits of Alabama. 

It is more than probable that the vast extent and the actual value 
of these important Southern material resources are as yet but feebly 
comprehended by the general American public. While the Pennsyl¬ 
vania coal and iron deposits are justly celebrated throughout the 
world for their extent and productiveness, the Alabama mines possess. 


31 


a vast advantage over the former from the fact that the coal and iron 
deposits are juxtaposited, for the 'fuel for the working of the iron ore 
is contiguous to the deposits of the latter. As a consequence, the 
production of pig-iron has already become a prominent Southern in¬ 
dustry, while the foundries of the State of Alabama can to-day pro¬ 
duce it at the rate of $6.00 per ton cheaper than it can be made in 
Pennsylvania. 

In the latter State this industry, thanks to the protective system 
that has fostered its infancy and strengthend its growth, is on a most 
promising footing. The Alabama iron mills, fostered by a few more 
years of similar protection, will undoubtedly eclipse their Northern 
rivals, while that Gulf JState is destined to take a prominent place 
among the iron and coal producing regions of the world. 

While the English iron makers and coal miners are compelled 
to descend deep into the bowels of the earth to extract the precious 
deposits, both iron and coal, to an almost inexhaustible extent, are 
found on the very surface of the ground, in paying quantity and 
quality, in many localities of Alabama. It has been estimated that 
Alabama coal can be profitably mined at from ten cents to a dollar 
per ton. Coal from these deposits is daily hauled by rail to Cen¬ 
tral Texas, while experts have asserted that it can be placed in 
New Orleans aqd retailed at $2.50 per ton. 

As iron and coal exist in juxtaposition in many localities in 
Alabama, it cannot be a matter of surprise if the iron workers of 
the State can make pig-iron at $6.00 a ton cheaper than it can be 
produced in any other part of the Union. If pig-iron can be made 
so cheap there is no reason why a great economy in the production 
of iron manufactures of all kinds cannot also be obtained, and the 
rolling mills and foundries of the Gulf State be made to vie with, if 
not to excel, their rivals of the North, both in cheapness of production 
and the quality of manufacture. If this premise be true we cannot 
see why Alabama, with its extended and well-protected sea coast and 
its fairly deep water ports, should not, at some time in the near future, 
build all the iron ships requisite for the freightage of American com¬ 
merce to the markets of the world. 

We will suppose, for instance, that as the Alabama production 
of the raw material—pig Iron—is $6.00 per ton cheaper than it is in 
Pennsylvania, and the preparation of the metal for ship building 
purposes costs no more in the Alabama mills than in those of Penn¬ 
sylvania, an iron ship of 3000 tons can be built at Mobile $10,800 
-cheaper than on the Delaware; that is, in case the tariff for wages 
for workmen, etc., rules the same in each locality. The weight of 
iron used'nythe construction of a 3000-ton ship is about 1800 tons. 
This, at $6.00 per ton economy in the production of pig-iron, will 
make $10,800, as above stated. 

Thus, when the vast coal and iron resources of Alabama become 
duly appreciated, and ample capital seeks investment in their devel- 


32 


opment, there is no reason why, with cheaper material and equality 
on other points, the Gulf State -shotdd not become the principal iron 
ship building locality of the Republic. 

THE WORK COMMENCED. 

At last, comes the gratifying information that Congress has ap¬ 
propriated $50,000 for the commencement of this great national 
improvement, and it is earnestly to be hoped that the work will be 
pushed forward to early completion, so that by the time those great 
enterprises, the' Panama Canal and the Eads’Ship Railway, shall 
have been finished and opened to the commerce of the world, steam 
colliers can take on their cargoes of coal at Mobile and deliver them 
at Aspinwall and Tehuantepec at such rates as to defy foreign 
competition. 

In a few years we may safely predict a very large investment of 
capital in the business in the mining, transportation and selling of 
coal. Chdap fuel is a veritable and never-failing city builder. With, 
it invariably come population, manufactures, and ^11 branches of 
diversified industry, and the advent of the coal barge in Mobile will 
surely mark an epoch in her history full of promise for the future. 

This is no highly colored picture. 

They are predictions founded on the rise, progress and success of 
the large manufacturing cities of the country, all of which owe their 
prosperity mainly to cheap fuel and without which they would surely 
decline. The Warrior, coal barge can and will do for Mobile, Pen¬ 
sacola and New Orleans, what the Pittsburg coal barge has done and 
is now doing for Cincinnati, Louisville and the manufacturing towns 
on the Ohio. Let us inscribe on our banners “Cheap Coal! ” Let 
us secure this and prosperity will flow in upon us as noiselessly and 
surely as the tides of the Golden Gulf rise .before our eyes in their 
daily recurrence, and thus be the realization of a bright fact which 
must tend towards creating a new source of national wealth and— 
make Mobile 


THE GREAT COAL PORT OF AMERICA. 


PROGRESS. 


Since the publication of the facts contained in the foregoing- 
pages of this little pamphlet, the attention of the country has been 
thoroughly interested in the very remarkable subject to which they 
refer. The views of Mr. McClure, editor of the Philadelphia 
Times, and his graphic description of the progress of the industrial 
movement in Alabama as communicated to his paper last January, 
during his visit to the State, constitute a volume of such valuable 
information and from so high a source, that it is deemed of suffi¬ 
cient importance to republish his letters here. 

Mobile, January 17, 1885. 

Mobile is one of the few important natural gateways to the 
world of waters in the South, and second only to the Mississippi 
-outlet in the industry it should inspire and the commerce it should 
-command. The beautiful bay on which Mobile is situated has 
natural tributaries reaching far into almost boundless sources of 
natural wealth, which must at no distant day build up one of the 
grandest empires of the New South; and yet the Mobile of the 
pi'esent gives no token of its better destiny, and has only faded 
monuments of its past commerce and wealth. It teaches more 
pointedly than any other centre of trade in the South, the peril of 
a State that relies upon a single staple product and the peril of a 
city whose business is limited to a single productive industry. Be¬ 
fore the war Mobile handled eight hundred thousand bales of cotton 
annually, and that alone gave it a commerce that made it one of 
the most prosperous centres of the coast with uncommon wealth, 
culture and prosperity. The necessities of war quickened the 
energies of the South ; new highways were opened for armies and 
for trade, and they diverted trade to new centres, leaving Mobile 
with two-thirds of her cotton shipments lost in the race. Cotton 
was the one staple product of Alabama, and the one source of the 


34 


commerce of Mobile, and when cotton was attracted to other com¬ 
mercial centres, there was nothing left for Mobile but paralysis 
and decay. The same people remain the same; culture is main¬ 
tained in its proverbially hospitable people ; the same earnest, 
hopeful effort prevails in her intelligent business circles; but 
neither population, culture nor business effort can succeed in the 
unequal contest that has confronted this city of such exceptional 
natural advantages, and the unerring index of departed business 
and thrift are noted in the tenantless temples of commerce and in 
the blighted chaplets of commercial achievement. The natural 
conclusion that would be accepted by the North, is that Mobile 
must be the author of its own decline ; but it is not the truth. The 
war left this city impoverished as it left the South generally, and 
the vast outlay necessary to make the marvellous natural advan¬ 
tages of the port available, has not been within the power of either 
Mobile or Alabama. 

THE MATCHLESS RESOURCES OF THE STATE. 

To understand the causes which have left Mobile without 
advancement for twenty years after peace, and appreciate the future 
possibilities of this city, it is necessary to take a comprehensive 
view of th6 State of Alabama. I have studied the resources and 
opportunities of the State with special interest, because they are 
certain to revolutionize some of our chief sources of w'ealth in Penn¬ 
sylvania ; and the more they are studied, the more clear it must 
become to every intelligent mind, that England is not to-day more 
the rival of the Keystone State in the future production-of iron and 
coal than is Alabama. There is not a soimce of mineral wealth in 
Pennsylvania, excepting only our oil product, that is not found in 
Alabama in equal or greater abundance, with the matchless advan¬ 
tages of climate, of easier and cheaper production and of vastly 
cheaper transportation. Nature’s great gifts to Pennsylvania have 
been not only liberally supplemented in Alabama, but to them 
have been added .every possible natural advantage for their cheap 
development and delivery to the markets of the world. If half the 
capital and business direction that have been given to make Penn¬ 
sylvania peerless in the production of mineral wealth, had bee» 
given to Alabama, her productive wealth would be as great as that 


35 


of the iron State and her population would be nearer five millions 
than the million and a quarter now scattered over the boundless 
but almost untouched riches of this sunny commonwealth. Think 
of a State with over five thousand square miles of productive coal 
fields, whose coal is now sold at a fair profit in New Orleans at 
less than $4.00 per ton. It is mainly of the best quality, alike for 
commercial, manufacturing and domestic purposes; it is in large 
veins; it is more easily mined than our most favorably located 
bituminous coal fields in the North ; and in large portions of the 
coal fields there is good iron in abundance, much of it requiring 
no actual mining at all, and with the iron and coal is found the 
limestone. Birmingham is a feeble forecast of what Alabama may 
do. There a city of a dozen thousands presents a hive of industry 
where a single house stood at a railway crossing little more than a 
decade back. It is the one point of Alabama where iron and coal 
abound, that has happened to be reached by transportation, and it 
has sprung up as if by magic to point out not only the possibilities 
but the inevitable and wonderful destiny of the State. It is ad¬ 
mitted that iron can now be produced in this State $6.00 per ton 
cheaper than in the reasonably favored iron centres of Pennsyl¬ 
vania ; and that it is a certain index of the industrial revolution 
that is rapidly approaching. What has been done in Birmingham 
not only can be done as well in many other parts of the State ; but 
it can be even more profitably done in Birmingham and elsewhere 
in Alabama as soon as the great natural highways of the State 
shall be made available ; and no citizen of the North of fair intelli¬ 
gence can review the slumbering wealth of Alabama and the water¬ 
ways which offer the cheapest transportation, without accepting 
the conclusion that the next generation will see this State an iron 
and coal centre equal if not surpassing Pennsylvania, and Mobile 
the great coal depot of the coast. It is this rational hope to which 
this balmy city of the South clings in portraying the revival of her 
commerce ; the renewal and enlargement of her business temples 
and the more than restoration of her lost wealth and grandeur. 

THE NATURAL HIGHWAYS OF ALABAMA. 

Not a vessel graces the broad rivers of Pennsylvania beyond 
the coast in the east. The Susquehanna, the Schuylkill, the Dela- 


36 


ware and the Juniata, are simply beautiful but useless outlets for 
our montain springs as they go murmuring to the sea; but Mobile 
is the outlet of many rivers which penetrate into the leading centres 
of wealth in Alabama, and the finest bay of the continent connects 
them with the great highways of the world. With no more ex¬ 
penditure than has been wasted on mud creeks and summer moun¬ 
tain streams in a single river and harbor appropriation bill, the 
Alabama river could be made navigable through the heart of the 
State away up to Rome, in the northern part of Georgia, and the 
now easy navigation of the Tombigbee could be extended up the 
Warrior to the great centre of iron and coal, west of Birmingham. 
No State not reached by the Father of Waters and its tributaries 
approaches Alabama in the magnificence of her natural highways* 
and even the Mississippi, although commanding tribute from two- 
thirds of the States of the Union, offers no such facilities for the 
interior development of any one State, as do the water-ways of 
Alabama. An expenditure of from half to three-quarters of a mill¬ 
ion, would make uninterrupted water navigation from the Warrior 
coal and iron region to the sea, and two millions more would make 
the Alabama bring the fruits of her fields and mines from the far 
north and northeastern part of the State, and drawn upon north¬ 
western Georgia to swell the commerce of Mobile. The channel 
of Mobile bay has been already greatly improved, and every foot 
of depth attained has held its own. The pressure of the new 
energies of the New South must hasten the needed improvement 
of these great natural gifts to the commerce of the South, and when 
the river arteries of trade and the channel of the bay shall have 
been completed, the development of wealth in Alabama must be 
exceptional if not unexampled in the history of our substantial pro¬ 
gress. As early as the administration of the second Adams the 
importance of these water-ways was appreciated by the Govern¬ 
ment, but cotton was king; it met every apparent want of the 
South, and as there was no supreme necessity to press these im¬ 
provements, they readily bowed to the more imperious demands 
of trade in other sections of the Union. 

THE FUTURE OF MOBILE. 

It is no idle dream that makes the people of this once pros- 


37 


perous but now languishing port, hopeful of a renewed and greatly 
increased commercial prosperity in the near future. I regard the 
extension of her wonderful water-ways and the needed improve¬ 
ment of the channel of the bay as vastly more legitimate arid im¬ 
portant than the Hennepin canal. The one is the traditional and 
accepted policy of the Government^ the other is straining the most 
liberal ideas of legitimate public improvements by Congress ; and 
both the rivers and the harbor have already been recognized in 
past appropriations as demanding the generous aid of the country. 
When completed, as I assume they must be at an early day, Penn¬ 
sylvania must look to her laurels; but there is no sound public 
policy that can make the interests of one State seek to hinder the 
development of a sister State that may outstrip the hitherto success¬ 
ful in the race for development and wealth. Whenever Alabama 
can make cheaper iron thar Pennsylvania to supply the country, 
Pennsylvania must transfer the rude music of her forges to the 
Sunny South ; and whenever Alabama can supply the world with 
cheaper coal than Pennsylvania, the world will buy of Alabama 
and Pennsylvania capital and energy will not take pause over sen¬ 
timental theories, but hasten to follow the larger profits of industry. 
With water transportation from the immense coal fields of Ala¬ 
bama, and Mobile completed for the largest shipping, no State in 
the Union and no nation of the world will be able to compete with 
this State in supplying the Gulf of Mexico, the West Indies and 
Central and South America with coal. England now draws some 
four millions annually from those countries for coal, while the 
United States draws little more than a quarter of a million ; and 
the supremacy of Mobile as a cotton centre would be more than 
restored- Mobile would be literally the great gateway to the 
waters of the world for the Southern coal trade if given the benefit 
of the gifts nature has bestowed upon her; and what interest or 
what section can assume to hinder so great a consummation? 
There are 4,000 square miles of virgin pine forest, with large sup¬ 
plies of cypress and white oak, which would be made marketable 
by these completed water-ways, and the cotton belt of Alabama and 
Eastern Mississippi that sought Mobile before the war, produces 
over a million bales annually. These are stubborn facts; facts 
which the people of Mobile are worshipping as the early salvation 
of both city and State ; facts which the people of Pennsylvania and 


3 S 


the North must look in the face soon at the latest, and the sooner 
the better. They foreshadow the same mutations in industry, 
trade and wealth, which have left their inexorable lessons on all 
ages and peoples of the past, and I welcome them as certain 
to give lustre to another of the many unpolished jewels of the 
Republic. A. K. M. 

Birmingham, January 28. 

If you want tQ see an infant Pennsylvania, with all the vigor 
and go-ahead activeness of the regulation American boy just ready 
to bounce out of long clothes into high-legged boots, come to 
Birmingham, in the heart of Alabama. It is Young America 
personified and improved. It has more push and better bottom 
than any suddenly created city on the continent, and it is a revela¬ 
tion to both North and South. Towns have sprung up as sud¬ 
denly in the oil regions and in new mining camps in the far 
western mountains, but they have perished as speedily as they 
were created. Birmingham has all the solidity of Pittsburg or 
Reading or Allentown, and it requires no labored investigation to 
learn that, matchless as has been the growth of this new-born city, 
it is yet in its infancy and certain to attain the earliest and most 
vigorous manhood. Twelve years ago the solitude of Birmingham 
was attested by a single ordinary farm house; but two railways 
finally crossed each other there and this invited capitalists to in¬ 
vestigate the great coal, iron and limestone beds of Central Ala¬ 
bama. Stories had been long told of them that were regarded as 
akin to fable, and when peace came and railroads began to traverse 
the New South, capitalists came to the little house on the cross¬ 
railways, planted their investments about it, and now a city of 
nearly twenty thousand population, with boundless energy and 
more than common thrift, has begun the inevitable revolution in 
the iron trade of the continent. Some idea of the substantial 
growth of the city may be learned from the valuation of property 
for taxable purposes in the county of Jefferson, that was two 
millions in 1882 and was nine millions in 1884. It has none of 
the signs of heedless haste for temporary use exhibited in the new 
oil and mining towns. It has one of the finest opera houses in the 
South ; its residences rival the beauty of Atlanta homes ; its stores 
and business houses present all the best qualities of Northern 


39 


energy and method, and its large class of skilled operatives enjoy 
a measure of comfort that is exceptional in Southern industry. It 
is largely a Northern creation, but it is worthy of note how 
ihorougly the Birmingham Southerner keeps abreast with the 
Northerner in every channel of progress. 

PRODUCT OF IRON AND COAL. 

Twelve years ago the total coal product of Alabama was 
20,000 tons a year ; now, nearly half that amount is sent to market 
each day, the total tonnage of 1884 being 1,500,000. Twelve 
years ago the total pig iron product of the State was 60,000 tons ; 
■mow it is 600,000. These two sentences speak volumes to the iron 
^and coal interests of the whole country. Remember that while 
The increase noted in the iron and coal product covers a period of 
twelve years, to date the sluggish product of ante-bellum times, 
the chief growth has been in one-third of that period, and during 
a season of continued and steadily increasing depression in the 
iron and coal trade of the country. This marvellous growth has 
■come in Alabama when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad 
dompany has been bankrupt by the prostration of the iron and 
coal industries of Pennsylvania; there has been uninterrupted 
prosperity here while a large portion of our Pennsylvania furnaces 
iiave been driven to idleness and those that continued have, 
^is a rule, been fortunate if they escaped actual loss. In like man¬ 
lier, the coal trade of this region has been reasonably prosperous, 
/while many of our Pennsylvania operators have been bankrupted, 
sand others have escaped bankruptcy by closing their mines. The 
condition of the coal trade in the North has been clearly portrayed 
hy the almost constant strikes and disputes between employers and 
(employed, each struggling for the little profit the business offered, 
while here there has been no interruption in the production of 
coal. Convict labor largely fills the channels of unskilled in¬ 
dustry in the mines, but free labor is much better and it more than 
tiolds its own even against the unequal competition. There must be 
^reat natural causes for this contrast between the iron and coal in¬ 
dustries of this city and like industries in Pennsylvania, where a 
full quarter of a century has been devoted to the perfection of 
transportation lines and the cheapest methods of production. We 


40 


certainly have solved that problem in our State. Capital has not 
been wanting; on the contrary, it has been lavishly suppled to¬ 
rn ake our coal and iron beds most profitable; but with all the 
boundless resources of the North, this iron and coal centre pros¬ 
pers while the same industries in the North languish, and when 
the South is only in the, infancy of transportation facilities. And 
let not the North be deluded with the idea that this strange 
development in the South is ephemeral. There has been no sud¬ 
den local demand and no specially fortuitious circumstances to 
create a city here as if by magic. It has been done simply because 
it can, with perfect facilities for reaching the markets of the 
country, more than rival our chief iron and coal centres of the 
North ; and with that fact accepted, what must be the future of & 
State that has the resources to multiply its Birmingham almost 
indefinitely? 

THE COAL AND IRON BEDS. 

Unless all evidence and calculation are^at fault, the iron and 
coal of this region within range of cheap production, are practically 
inexhaustible. Birmingham is part of the great Black Warrior 
coal field that contains over 5,000 square miles of accessible coal* 
and it may be added the 200 squai'e miles of equally good and ac¬ 
cessible coal in the Cahaba field and 150 square miles more in the 
Coosa field. In addition to these, it may be well to consider the 
5,000 square miles of coal just south of the Tennessee. These 
nearly ir,ooo square miles of coal are practically one vast coal 
field, capable of supplying the world with that commodity. As 
yet it is not penetrated by water navigation, but when half a mil¬ 
lion dollars or little more would open the great Warrior coal field 
to uninterrupted water highways to every port of the world through^ 
Mobile bay, how long would it require the lesson of Birmingham 
to open the grand water highways of Alabama to the illimitable 
wealth of her coal fields? The maximum cost of coal here is $1.25, 
per ton at the furnace doors. It is found in nearly horizontal 
strata, and varies from 6 to 150 feet in thickness, the Warrior fields 
whence this city is supplied, having the thickest veins. The irora 
ore that is mined and delivered cheaper than at any of our great 
iron fields of the North, is absolutely exhaustless and embraces the 
red hematite and the brown ores, with a more than ample supply 


41 


of limestone close at hand. Red Mountain takes its name from 
its iron, and is almost literally a mountain of iron. It is estimated 
by official geological reports that there are 500,000,000,000 tons 
of iron in it alone. These exceptional facilities for producing iron 
and coal are increased by the more genial climate and cheaper 
labor that must ever be obtained where both fuel and food are 
cheapened by the absence of severe northern winters. This is the 
only iron centre as yet developed that seems to offer the produc¬ 
tion of coal at the minimum of cost, as it has every requisite for 
iion in superabundance, and all attainable at the furnace with the 
least outlay. The one drawback that has hindered the appearance 
of Birmingham iron in all our Northern markets is transportation, 
but even with the disadvantage of costly freights iron from this 
city now* successfully competes with Pennsylvania at home and in 
New 7 York and New England. The Southern railways cannot 
afford the cheap freight rates that the. Northern lines can offer 
because of their immensely larger traffic; but the south will rap¬ 
idly improve in its transportation lines; its improved transporta¬ 
tion will rapidly develop industrial products, and both will rap¬ 
idly cheapen transportation until it approximates Northern rates. 
And when comparatively cheap railroad transportation shall come 
to the iron and coal of Alabama, with water transit by the Warrior 
and Tombigbee rivers to the sea, who can measure the growth of 
those industries in this State? 

THE IRON AND COAL REVOLUTION. 

It is idle for Pennsylvania and other great iron and coal pro¬ 
ducing States to close their eyes to the fact that we have reached 
the beginning of a great revolution in those products. No legisla¬ 
tion, no sound public policy, no sentiment can halt such a revolu¬ 
tion when the immutable laws of trade command it; and the 
sudden tread of the hordes from the northern forests upon ancient 
Rome did not more surely threaten the majesty of the mistress of 
the world than does the tread of the iron and coal diggers of Ala¬ 
bama threaten the majesty of Northern iron and coal fields. I do 
not credit the common saying that iron can be produced here for 
$9 per ton. There are many here who will tell you so ; but after 
careful inquiry in the most intelligent and reliable circles, I fix am 


42 


entirely safe limit of average cost at $11.50. There is iron pro¬ 
duced here at less than that cost; but $11.50 is as just an estimate 
for Birmingham as $17 is for Pennsylvania; and it must be re¬ 
membered that Pennsylvania has reached the minimum cost in the 
production and marketing of her iron, while Alabama can and will 
greatly cheapen the delivery of her iron in the great centres of 
trade. And what is true of iron must be equally true of Coal. 
They are twin sisters, whose development must keep pace with 
each other. Nova Scotia will soon learn to fear Alabama more 
than the small tariff now imposed upon her imported coal, and in¬ 
stead of extorting double prices fpr bituminous coal, as she did in 
the early days of the late war, before protection had developed 
our northern mines, she will find Alabama crowding both herself 
and Pennsylvania in the New England factories, and with the 
water ways of the State perfected, even England will have to look 
to her laurels in the Central and South American States. These 
lessons come upon us plain as the noonday sun, and it is midsum¬ 
mer madness not to read them understandingly. We cannot war 
with destiny; we cannot efface the beneficial gifts of Him who 
leads the waters to the sea and sends them back in the dews and 
rains of heaven. Alabama has been gifted far beyond even our 
boasted empire of Pennsylvania, and only the Southern sluggard 
has hitherto given the race to the North. Now there is a new 
South, with new r teachings, new opportunities, new energies, and 
manifestly a new destiny, and the time is at hand when a large 
portion of thugreat iron and coal products of the country which 
enter competing centres will be supplied cheaper from Alabama 
than from any State in the North. How Pennsylvania will solve 
the problem, I do not assume to decidebut the logical result 
would be the transfer of the portion of the iron industry that can 
best prosper here, from the North to the South, just as the spin¬ 
ning and weaving of the home consumption of cotton must soon 
•come to the cotton fields and the better water power and climate 
which they furnish. 

FUTURE OF BIRMINGHAM. 

Three trunk railway lines cross each other in this city, giving 
at the best railway facilities of any interior Southern centre, except- 


43 


ing only Atlanta. These lines, extending by main routes to the 
Gulf, to the coast, to the east, to the lakes, and to the west, and 
reaching every part of the country by their connections and tribu¬ 
taries, furnish rare facilities for the development of the wealth that 
abounds here; and new and important railway lines are soon to 
be added to them. And when it is considered that as railway out¬ 
lets multiply, the great river highway of the Warrior river will be 
hastened to completion, the business possibilities of this region 
would seem incredible to the North even when cautiously stated. 
Through the kindness of the Mayor and the President of the Board 
of Trade, I was enabled to visit and thoroughly examine the great 
coal mines and the iron establishments which have created Bir¬ 
mingham, and the universal activity and unerring signs of prosperous 
operations present a marked contrast with our coal and iron centres 
in the North. There is a furnace here on a farm that furnishes 
everything necessary to make iron—the iron ore, coal, limestone 
and sand ; but the great beds of iron, coal and limestone, are in a 
radius of four or five miles. That these exhaustless sources of 
wealth in such close proximity must soon defy competition in the 
product of the ordinary iron, I regard as no longer a doubtful 
problem ; but it is yet doubtful whether the competition can extend 
to the better qualities of iron and to steel. The manufacture of 
steel has not been attempted as yet, and while it is claimed that it 
will soon be prodbced here at the same relative cost as iron and 
equal in quality to the steel of Pennsylvania, I feel no assurance that 
it can be done at all. The faith of the iron men of Birmingham 
is so strong in its resources that they confidently claim everything 
for it possessed by any other iron district of the world, even to the 
blades of Damascus ; but here, as elsewhere in all the world, there 
will be material limitations upon the perfection of iron products. 

AX INVITING IRON FIELD. 

Just what this vast field of as yet untested wealth may produce 
will be known only when the rattling, rollicking iron infant hurries 
on toward manhood ; but discounting Birmingham by all that is 
yet undiscovered as to variety of iron, it is the most inviting iron 
field on the continent, with a coal trade in the near future that 
will be bounded only by the coal ports of the world ; and another 


44 


decade will likely see more than an hundred thousand population) 
here, with the whole region dotted with hives of industry such as 
Birmingham is to-day. With the marvellous progress made here 
when stagnation prevailed in all the coal and iron centres of the 
North, what must be the strides of this industrial centre whera 
prosperity comes to revive the same industries in Pennsylvania? 
This country will draw the young men of energy from the coal and¬ 
iron mountains of Pennsylvania, just as the fertile prairies of the 
West have drawn the young men Of energy from our. Pennsyl¬ 
vania farms, and there is room for thousands of them with better- 
prospects of success than in any new State or Territory of the 
Union. These are strong expressions, but I write them only after 
the most exhaustive enquiry and careful examination, and I know 
that they are fully warranted. This is the coal and iron empire of 
the South, and, I believe, the future coal and iron empire of the 
United States; and it has a climate and soil adapted to the bounti¬ 
ful growth of everything grown in Pennsylvania, with one-sixth of 
the entire cotton crop of the South added. It is the equal of Pemi- 
sylvania in forest, field and mine, with climate, natural highways 
and cheapness of product turning the scales in profit by them. 
They will not make Pennsylvania poor, for her people and resources 
are equal to any and all the mutations of industry and tradehot 
they will make Alabama rich, and that will multiply the wealth 
and grandeur of the whole Union. A. K. M. 

The Legislature of Alabama unanimously adopted the follow¬ 
ing joint memorial to Congress, relative to the improvement of 
the Warrior: 

JOINT MEMORIAL 

Of the General Assembly of Alabama to the Congress of the 
United States, asking the appropriation of sufficient money to>- 
complete the improvement of the Warrior River, &c. 

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Eepresentatives 

of the United States in Congress assembled «. 
Your memorialists, the General Assembly of Alabama, res¬ 
pectfully and earnestly recommend and ask the appropriation of 
sum sufficient to complete the improvement of the Black Warrior 


45 


river in Alabama, in accordance with the estimates and plans 
heretofore furnished by the Chief of Engineers of the Army of the 
United States. 

Your memofalists respectfully urge in support of this appro¬ 
priation, its eminent national character, the necessity for the cheap¬ 
ening of coal to the people of the‘Gulf States, the extension of 
American commerce in the West Indies, Central and South 
America and Mexico, which countiies, public statistics show, are 
*sm>w mainly supplied with bituminous coal by foreign countries to 
*he practical exclusion of the products of American mines. 

Your memoralists respectfully show that the Black Warrior 
"river is navigable to Tuscaloosa, in Alabama, a distance from 
Side-water of 378 miles, and the improvement of the river above' 
that point is necessary to allow access by water to the great War¬ 
rior Coal Fields, consisting of 5500 square miles of coal area, and 
the renowned basin of that formation, through the heart of 
which the upper Warrior flows.' 

The subject of supplying our naval ves’sels and commercial 
marine on the Gulf of Mexico with a certain supply of cheap steam 
<coal, apart from the enormous* local benefits arising from cheapen¬ 
ing the article to millions of our citizens, is deserving of the earnest 
consideration of Congress. . The history of the country shows the 
.undeniable fact that enormous prices have been paid by the Gov¬ 
ernment, and the people in Gulf ports, for coal for commercial 
-and domestic purposes, supplied from great distances, and by for¬ 
eign nations, whilst at our own doors lies, almost entirely unde¬ 
veloped, a coal field of unrivalled quality and in extent sufficient 
4 o supply the wants of the entire world, which is at present closed 
by law to private improvement and neglected by the Government. 

Your memorialists respectfully refer to the Act of May 23, 
1828, which declares the Warrior river toll free to all citizens of 
the United States and to all property of the United States, and 
places the same under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. Said 
act being now codified and known as Section 5244, Revised Statutes' 
of the United States. 

Your memorialists further state that large sums have been 
saved annually to the Government of the United States since the 
opening of mines in Alabama and the delivery of coal by rail¬ 
road at tide-water, and it is believed that the additional saving that 


40 


may be made by furnishing water transportation will, in a few 
years, be equal to the sum necessary to improve the upper Warrior, 

Your memorialists further show that the streams flowing 
through the coal measures of other sections of the country have 
been especially favored by the Government and the product of 
those mines enabled to reach a market of immense extent, whilst 
the enormous coal deposit of the Warrior, situated in the heart of 
the Gulf States, has been rendered practically useless as a means 
of coal supply by water at cheap rates, owing to the neglect of the 
Government and the impeding laws before referred to. 

In these days, when to enlarge the foreign commerce of our 
country is an imperative duty, when American influences are 
gradually being spread in the countries south of us—with the pro¬ 
jected canals and railroads on the Isthmus of Panama and Nica- 
raugua—your memoralists respectfully urge, that there is no sub¬ 
ject that bears more directly upon the success of our policy and 
commerce, in those countries, than a supply of cheap steam coal r 
furnished at tide-water in the Gulf of Mexico. 

South America, .Central America, the West Indies and Mexico., 
are mainly supplied with coal from "Great Britain, a distance of 
over 5000 miles, whilst the port of Mobile is, in many instances., 
only one-fourth the distance, enabling the American ship to make 
three voyages whilst the foreign vessel can make but one. 

Your memorialists respectfully show that coal is now delivered 
at the mines in Alabama at half the price it costs free on board 
ship in Great Britain, and thus having the advantage in distance 
and price, it only remains to furnish water transportation to the 
tide to enable the Warrior Coal Field to effectively control this- 
immense market now closed to the Americau coal trade. 

Your memorialists respectfully seek to impress upon you the 
fact that in time of war a supply of cheap steam coal in the Gulf 
would be • a prime necessity, its absence fraught with danger to 
the country. The amount of money necessary to accomplish this 
great national undertaking is a trifle, compared with the blessings 
to be conferred on American commerce, as well as on the Govern¬ 
ment; and as the estimates show that all this may be accomplished 
at the r-'st of one million two hundred thousand dollars, Congress 
is earnestly besought to grant that sum that the work may be 
quickly accomplished. 


47 


In conclusion, the following letter of Mr. Charles H. BalU. 
Chief Engineer United States Revenue Marine, as a very valuable 
testimonial to the superior quality of the coal of the Warrior Fields 
is given. This testimony of an officer of the United States, of 
high rank and acknowledged ability in his profession, after several 
years of practical observation, during which time this coal was put; 
to a severe test, should settle forever its value as a steam-producing; 
fuel: 

United States Revenue Marine, 

U. S. Rev. Str. “Seward,” 
Port of Mobile, Ala., January 17, 1885*. 
To whom it may concern : 

This is to certify that the Alabama coals used on board this 
yessel have proved entirely satisfactory, steaming as many, if not 
more, miles than the coals from the mines of Pennsylvania or 
Maryland. 

I have used at different times the Welsh, Duffryn, Newcastle, 
Scotch, Van Couvers Island, and other English coals. I consider 
the Alabama coals superior, as we steam more miles per ton, clean 
fires less often, and have less smoke. 

I consider the Alabama coals a first-class steam coal. 

Chas. H. Ball, 

Chief Engineer, U. S. R. Marine,, 





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